Semiconductor crystals, including semiconductor nanoparticles such as quantum dots, are useful to provide imaging and lighting in many technological applications. For example, semiconductor quantum dots (hereinalso “QDs”) have been used as biocompatible probes for in vivo imaging and medical diagnostics, as potential replacements or enhancers to LED lighting, as modifiers or replacements in LED display technology, as active materials in photovoltaic cells (so-called quantum dot solar cells), and as potential catalysts for water splitting (i.e., hydrogen generation) for fuel cell applications, as well as in semiconductors, biomedical diagnostics, imaging, targeting and drug delivery, biosensors, lighting, display technology, solar cells, and photovoltaics, for example.
A major barrier to the utilization of quantum dots in commercial applications is the high cost associated with conventional chemical synthesis due to high temperatures, pressures and toxic solvents, thereby requiring specialized, expensive waste disposal procedures. Furthermore, multi-stage synthesis methods are necessary to ‘cap’ chemically-synthesized QDs in order to enhance water solubility. Therefore, more cost-efficient and environment friendly methods of producing and using soluble quantum dots, as well as less toxic quantum dot compositions, are desirable.